In 1965, when I was fourteen, I read my first adult novel; it was

“In 1965, when I was fourteen, I read my first adult novel; it was a historical novel about Katherine of Aragon, and I could not put it down. When I finished it, I had to find out the true facts behind the story and if people really carried on like that in those days. So I began to read proper history books, and found that they did!” Thus spoke Alison Weir, the historian and storyteller whose pen bridges the realms of fact and imagination. Her words are more than a recollection of youthful curiosity — they are a testament to the birth of a calling, to the sacred moment when wonder meets truth. Within this quote lies the eternal awakening of the mind: the moment when one ceases to consume stories merely for pleasure, and begins instead to seek the truth behind them.

When Weir describes reading her first adult novel, she recalls that electric instant when a young heart first glimpses the depth of the human story. The tale that captured her — the life of Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII — was no mere fiction; it was the echo of real passions, struggles, and sacrifices that shaped the fate of nations. What seized her spirit was not just the drama of queens and kings, but the realization that these lives, so vivid on the page, had once breathed, suffered, and loved in the light of the same sun. The young reader became a seeker, and through that seeking, history itself became alive.

The origin of this quote lies in Alison Weir’s own journey from reader to historian. Born in 1951, she came of age in a world where history was often taught as dry dates and dusty facts. Yet through fiction, she discovered its beating heart. That first novel ignited a fire that led her to explore archives, chronicles, and testimonies of the past — not as relics, but as human stories. Her later works — such as The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Eleanor of Aquitaine — would carry forward that same flame, uniting the rigor of history with the emotion of narrative. For Weir, knowledge began not with textbooks, but with the passion to know what was true behind what was imagined.

This transformation — from wonder to wisdom — is one known to many of the great minds of history. Consider Herodotus, the ancient “Father of History.” Like Weir, he began not as a scholar of dates, but as a lover of tales. Hearing the legends of his people, he sought to discover which were true. Traveling across lands and seas, he questioned kings and priests, piecing together the truth behind the myths of Greece and Egypt. In him, as in Weir, we see that same eternal impulse: the belief that behind every story lies the living heartbeat of truth, waiting for the curious to uncover it.

Weir’s discovery — that the people of the past “really did carry on like that” — reveals another wisdom: that human nature has not changed. The loves, jealousies, betrayals, and ambitions of queens and courtiers are the same that dwell in the hearts of men and women today. History is not a distant mirror, but a living reflection of ourselves. To read it is to know that time does not erase the soul — it merely changes its setting. The grandeur of the Tudor court, the tragedies of power, the courage of faith — all are woven into the endless pattern of humanity’s story.

Thus, Weir’s words are not only a remembrance of youth, but a call to curiosity. They remind us that knowledge begins in wonder — that the door to wisdom is opened not by duty, but by delight. The young girl who could not put down her book teaches us that learning is not a chore to be endured, but an adventure to be pursued. The truest education does not end in facts; it begins in questions — the kind that make us seek, explore, and discover for ourselves the beauty of truth.

Let the lesson of Alison Weir’s story be taken to heart: read deeply, and let curiosity guide you beyond the page. When a tale moves you, ask what truth it conceals. When you encounter history, do not see it as distant, but as alive. Seek the human beneath the legend, the reality beneath the myth. For in doing so, you will not only understand the past — you will come to understand yourself.

And so, like the young Weir with her first novel in hand, let us each find our own Katherine of Aragon — that story which awakens the hunger to know more. Let us follow it from wonder into wisdom, from fiction into truth. For it is in that pursuit — the journey from imagination to knowledge — that we join the endless lineage of seekers, historians, and dreamers who, across the ages, have kept the light of curiosity burning bright.